Million-dollar home sales on the rise in Marin, the state

A sale balloon for a nearby store is shown next to a property in the Noe Valley neighborhood just sold for 1.8 million in cash, 600,000 more than its asking price, in San Francisco, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. In the souped-up world of San Francisco real estate, where the median selling price for homes and condominiums hit seven figures for the first time last month, the cool million that would fetch a mansion on a few acres elsewhere will now barely cover the cost of an 800-square-foot starter home. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

The number of million-dollar home sales rose in Marin and many other parts of California in the second quarter of 2014, according to a report released Thursday.

Irvine-based CoreLogic DataQuick said that the number of California homes that sold for a million dollars or more increased to its highest level in seven years during the April-through-June period.

Statewide, a total of 12,826 homes sold for a million dollars or more during the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 9.1 percent compared with 11,758 in the second quarter of 2013.

In Marin, the number of homes priced at a million dollars or more that sold during the second quarter grew to 493, an increase of 9.8 percent compared with the same period the year before. The number of homes that sold for $2 million or more in Marin jumped 36 percent to 139 in the second quarter.

The Mill Valley ZIP code, 94941, had the eighth-highest volume of million dollar sales in the state with 114. The most expensive house sold in Mill Valley during the second quarter went for $5.9 million.

"I'm not surprised," said Marin County Assessor Richard Benson, "the proximity to San Francisco is a pretty strong factor affecting desirability right now. There is a lot of demand from San Francisco that is slipping into Marin County."

Manhattan Beach's ZIP code, 90266, located in southwestern Los Angeles County, had the highest volume of million dollar sales in the second quarter, 146.

The priciest purchase reported in the second quarter was a 11,637-square-foot, four-bedroom, six-bathroom Westwood mansion built in 1931 that sold for $45 million in May. The roomiest was a 16,840-square-foot, six-bedroom, 13-bathroom mansion in Indian Wells that sold for $4.5 million.

Benson said the median sales price for a single-family, detached homes in Marin in June was over $1 million and has been trending over $1 million most of this year.

"We have been seeing consistently higher sales volumes and high values," Benson said.

According to Corelogic Dataquick, the second quarter's $1 million-plus sales were the highest for any quarter since 13,681 homes sold for $1 million or more in the second-quarter of 2007. The all-time record was set in the third-quarter of 2005, when 15,898 California homes sold for a million dollars or more.

Across the nine-county Bay Area, 5,734 homes sold for $1 million or more setting an all-time record for the region.

Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic DataQuick analyst, attributed the increase in $1 million-plus sales to two factors: increased demand and rapid price appreciation over the past year.

But despite the boom in high-end sales, Corelogic Dataquick said that total sales across all price categories in California fell 7.4 percent in the second quarter of 2014.

LePage said that at the lower-priced end of the market, "Affordability constraints are really kicking in, because prices have gone up so much in the last year or two."

In addition, LePage said, "There is just not a lot of inventory. A significant number of people are still underwater, meaning they owe more than their home is worth, so they can't put their home up for sale and move."

The Bay Area, however, has fared better. Total sales in the Bay Area during the second quarter dropped 2.9 percent, and total sales in Marin County decreased by just 0.4 percent.